Emery boards



Sept. 5, 1967 C. L. ROWE EMERY BOARDS Filed June 22, 1964 '/3 Pfg@ 2 l Mvg/wom (0L/N L. @oh/E United States Patent O M EMERY BOARDS Colin Lenton Rowe, Adams House, 37 Gowers Walk, London E1, England Filed June 22, 1964, Ser. No. 376,700 Claims priority, application Great Britain, Ilan. 28, 1964, 3,580/ 64 3 Claims. (Cl. 132-765) This invention relates to emery boards, as well known for toilet and other purposes.

Hitherto emery boards have commonly been constructed with a body made of a thin strip of wood upon which separate strips of a single ygrade or two different grades of sand paper are secured by a suitable adhesive. With such a construction, the sand paper is usually continued along the entire length of the wood so that the material of the sand paper, and the adhesive used therewith, may tend to `soil the fingers used to grasp the board.

Further, it is desirable that the body of the board shall be relatively -very thin and light in weight, and with a wooden body the requisitie thinness may only be obtainable with an undesirable lowering of resistance of the body against bending and breaking.

Still further, once a generally central portion of the board has been utilised to any considerable extent, the board tends to be considered thereafter as used and is accordingly discarded, although the remainder of the abrasive area may not have been utilised to anything like its possible full extent of life. As a result, the entire emery board is thrown away before total utilisation, resulting in unnecessary wastage.

It is a first object of the present invention to provide an improved emery board wherein the body portion of the board may be made of a relatively strong material which is not liable to split, in use, in the manner common with wooden emery boards.

Another object of the invention is to provide an improved emery board wherein the operative surface of the boad may be replaced on the body, permitting the same body to be retained and utilised with any number of successive replacement sand papers.

A still further object of the invention is to provide, in an emery board, an improved surface formation and shaping adapted to enhance the grip of the fingers thereon.

According to the present invention, an emery board comprises a body made of a resiliently flexible material and including an elongated blade portion and a handle portion disposed at one end of said blade portion, said blade portion tapering in width in the direction away from said handle portion, and a sheath of flexible sheet material having an abrasive on its outer surface engaged as a push fit onto the blade for the major part of the length of said blade.

The blade portion may also taper in thickness in the direction away from the handle portion.

The handle portion is advantageously specially shaped and/or provided with a surface configuration adapted to improve the grip of the finger and thumb on its opposite sides. By way of example a flat plate-like handle portion may have a non-uniform or relieved surface, e.g. ribs, serrations, dimples or the like, on one or both faces. The handle area may also include, at one or both sides, a raised rim defining an enclosed area to receive the pad of the finger and thumb used to grip the handle portion, and such areas may be made larger on one face than on the other to suit the difference in size of the pads of the finger and thumb. Advantageously the area defined within the raised rim is somewhat thicker than the -remainder of the body, whereby the handle portion presents two raised rims at opposed positions and forms,

3,339,562 Patented Sept. A5, 1967 ICC for gipping, an element which is of several times the thickness of the remainder of the emery board.

The body as a whole is advantageously made as an integral one-piece moulding of a suitable thermoplastic synthetic resinous plastics material, e.g. by injection moulding.

In a preferred form the blade is tapered slightly from the width at the gripping end to a somewhat smaller width at the other remote end which terminates in a nailcleaning hook, and is also very slightly tapered in thickness in the direction away from the gripping end.

The sheath of flexible material, to be engaged over the blade, maye 4be pre-formed as a sheath, and may be open at one end or at both ends. Advantageously it is similarly tapered along its length to correspond to the taper of the body portion.

The sheath preferably has at least the major part of its surface provided on both sides, with an abrasive material, and a different grade of abrasive material may be provided at each side.

Such a sheath may be constituted by two opposed portions of abrasive-covered sheet material such as sand paper or the like cut so as to each form one of the sides of the sheath, the two portions being secured together along two longitudinal flange areas disposed adjacent the edges of the blade. By way of example, each of the portions of sand paper may be somewhat wider, along its whole length, than the blade of the body portion, the two overlapping flanges presented by the respective sheets being joined by adhesive or a bonding agent. Alternatively, the sheath may be constituted by a single portion of abrasive-covered sheet material folded once and secured on itself along a longitudinal flange area disposed adjacent an edge of the blade.

In order that the nature of the invention may be readily ascertained, an embodiment of emery board made in accordance therewith is hereinafter particularly described with reference to the figures of the accompanying drawing, wherein:

FIG. l is a plan view of the emery board;

FIG. 2 is -a side elevation thereof.

FIG. 3 is a section taken on the line III-III of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a section taken on the line IV-IV of FIG. l.

FIG. 5 is a side elvation of a modification.

FIG. 6 is a section of a modification, taken on a line corresponding to the line III-III of FIG. 1.

The emery :board comprises generally a one-piece body portion moulded from a suitable resilient synthetic resinous plastics material suchy as polyvinylchloride, polyethylene, or nylon, and a sheath por-tion m-ade from two -grades of sand paper.

The body portion has a flat elongated blade 1 which tapers from a wider gripping end to a narrower end having the conventional hook 2 for use in cleaning the finger nails and trimming the cuticles.

At the gripping end there is formed integrally a somewhat thicker handle portion 3 which has at each major face an elongated oval rim 4 projecting slightly above and enclosing a central area 5 formed with a single set of small serrations as shown, or with lany other alternative formation for increasing the grip of the fingers thereon, e.g. two sets of serrations at an angle, or dimples.

As illustrated in FIG. 2 the blade portion 1 is of the same thickness throughout its length, but as seen in FIG. 5 it may also taper somewhat in thickness in the direction away from the gripping en-d towards the hook end, thereby providing a somewhat thicker stem to the blade, and with greater resistance to bending.

On the blade portion 1 there is disposed a composite sheath 6 made up from two halves 6a, 6b each constituted by a piece of sand paper, or equivalent material, of two different grades of abrasive. The total length of the sheath is somewhat less than the length of the blade portion and it is open at both ends, i.e. at the wider end to permit introduction of the blade portion 1 and at the narrower end to permit the hooked end 2 of the blade portion to protrude.

The tapering of the sheath, both parallel to its major faces and if necessary normal to its major faces (FIG. 5) is made to correspond to that of the blade portion 1 so that the latter may be a relatively tight push-lit therein.

The two halves 6a, 6b of the sheath are formed from sheets of the sand paper by contour cutting of two appropriately shaped blanks which are of greater width so as to leave at each edge a ange pontion 6c, the flange portions 6c, 6c of the superposed blanks being joined by an adhesive or a bonding agent such as a thermosetting plastics material.

It will be appreciated that a similar shape of sheath could be formed from a single sheet of sand paper or like material folded once about a line which would constitute the outer edge of one ange, the two halves being placed parallel and secured by adhesive or bonding agent along a flange at the other edge of the sheath, as illustrated in FIG. 6. v

With such a construction of emery board, the body portion can be made wholly of a plastics material, or even of a plastics material with a springy metal insert moulded integrally therein, so as to be much stronger and more resistant to bending and splitting than has been the case with wooden-based emery boards, of comparable dimensions, used hitherto.

The grip obtainable on the raised, serrated, rimmed gripping area with the thumb and opposed finger tip is much better than could be obtained hitherto on a simple plane wooden surface. The plastics material utilised for formation of the body can readily be made of a decorative nature, e.g. self-coloured, and by surface decoration of any of those portions of the body which are still left eX- posed after application of the sheath thereto.

When a piece of sand paper has been used to exhaustion, on one or both major faces of the sheath, the latter can lbe removed and discarded, and be replaced by another fresh sheath. This substitution of a fresh sheath can be made at a fraction of the cost of discarding an l entire emery board of the conventional integral wooden kind.

A single body portion as described may be provided complete with a set of sheaths for use as replacements, and moreover the sheaths may themselves constitute a set having a plurality of different grades of abrasive, whereby the user then has available a single emery board capable of wide variation in the gradation of its abrasive.

I claim:

1. A manicure implement comprising a body made of a resiliently flexible material and including lan elongated and relatively thin flat blade having opposed major faces, said blade merging at one end into a fiat plate-like handle, said blade portion tapering in width in the direction away from said handle portion, and a sheath of flexible sheet material engaged as a push t onto the blade for the major part of the length of .the blade, said sheath being constituted by two opposed flat parallel portions of abrasive-covered sheet material of greater width than the blade disposed one on each major face of the blade and each having a flange area lying` beyond the blade edge `and secured .to the adjacent ange area of the other portion.

2. A manicure implement, as claimed in claim 1, wherein the two portions of abrasive-covered sheet material are parts of a single sheet of such material folded once `and with the abrasive material exposed at the exterior of the folded sheet, the line of fold lying along one edge of the blade and the ange areas of the two portions being secured together beyond the other edge ofthe blade.

3. A manicure implement, as claimed in claim 1, wherein two portions of abrasive-covered material each have flange areas along opposed edges, the adjacent flange areas along one edge of the two portions being secured together beyond one edge of the blade, the adjacent flange areas along the other edge of thetwo portions being secured together beyond the other edge ofthe blade.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 707,082 8/1902 Brown 51-380 X 2,019,580 ll/1935 Poux 13276.4 2,827,014 3/1958 Field 51-380 RICHARD A. GAUDET, Primary Examiner.

G. E. MCNEILL, Assistant Examiner. 

1. A MANICURE IMPLEMENT COMPRISING A BODY MADE OF A RESILIENTLY FLEXIBLE MATERIAL AND INCLUDING AN ELONGATED AND RELATIVELY THIN FLAT BLADE HAVING OPPOSED MAJOR FACES, SAID BLADE MEGING AT ONE END INTO A FLAT PLATE-LIKE HANDLE, SAID BLADE PORTION TAPERING IN WIDTH IN THE DIRECTION AWAY FROM SAID HANDLE PORTION, AND A SHEATH OF FLEXIBLE SHEET MATERIAL ENGAGED AS A PUSH FIT ONTO THE BLADE FOR THE MAJOR PATH OF THE LENGTH OF THE BLADE, SAID SHEATH BEING CONSTITUTED BY TWO OPPOSED FLAT PARALLEL PORTIONS OF ABRASIVE-COVERED SHEET MATERIAL OF GREATER WIDTH THAN THE BLADE DISPOSED ON ONE EACH MAJOR FACE OF THE BLADE AND EACH HAVING A FLANGE AREA LYING BEYOND THE BLADE EDGE AND SECURED TO THE ADJACENT FLANGE AREA OF THE OTHER PORTION. 